The nature of delusion: psychologically explicable? psychologically inexplicable? philosophically explicable? Part 1

The debate about the nature of delusion has rumbled on for over a century without resolution. The current situation is a stand-off between psychologists, who propose various theories as to the psychological explicability of delusion, and psychiatrists, who generally regard delusion as inexplicable. Our main aim in this 2-part article is to reprise the intellectual atmosphere of German psychopathology in the inter-war and immediate post-war years, when the issues concerning delusion were formulated with more sensitivity to the actual delusions encountered in clinical practice. In Part 1 we mount a critique of psychological and psychiatric theories of delusion.